Runners break in new O'Hare runway

The first new runway built at O'Hare International Airport in nearly 40 years served as a festive running track today, but Chicago aviation officials still must complete a marathon of their own.

On the northern edge of O'Hare, a safe distance from jets landing and taking off, several thousand runners, walkers and shutterbugs turned out for "Community Day" to mark the completion of new runway 9 Left/27 Right, set to open in two months.

The highlight of the day was the Athens Sister City Shuffle 5K on the Runway. The race raised funds for a project called "The Runners," a sculpture of five runners "emerging from antiquity to meet the present." When completed, the sculpture will be installed along Interstate Highway 190 into O'Hare.

Perhaps the Daley administration will consider holding another fundraiser, this one for the $15 billion O'Hare expansion project.

The new runway is scheduled to begin operating on Nov. 20 along with a new air-traffic control tower built to direct traffic on the so-called bad-weather landing strip, which is intended to help ease O'Hare's notorious flight delays.

But the airline industry so far has refused to help Chicago pay for the bulk of the O'Hare Modernization Program, which Mayor Richard Daley wants completed before the 2016 Olympics that the city hopes to host.

City officials are struggling in tumultuous economic times to arrange private financing for new runways, terminals and other improvements. The cloudy future comes on top of delays to the project caused partly by lawsuits from anti-expansion forces that threaten to drive up costs.